Analysis of Results

1

Analysis of results

The Expert Group on Policy Needs of Data on Crime and Criminal Justice, during their January meeting requested an active involvement in the development of the European Security Survey. Responding to this request, Eurostat, at the last meeting of the working group on crime statistics (February 2010), asked the Expert Group to provide key indicators which will be calculated based on the collected data in 2013. The issue was first discussed at the meeting of the sub-group on planning, March 16, where it was decided to draft and circulate to the members of the Expert Group a list of possible indicators asking them to express their priorities based on the needs and characteristics of their Member State. Prof. Jan Van Dijk, who is a member of the Expert Group, kindly, offered his help in the drafting of this list which was sent out in April 2010.

The first results were presented at the meeting of the Task Force on victimisation, 29 April 2010, where it was decided to extend the deadline of the exercise so as to receive as many replies as possible. Despite the reminders, none of the remaining Member States answered to our request. A summary of the results is presented below; the original questionnaire is listed in Annex 1; all answers to the open questions together with the general comments can be found in the Annex 2.

A) RESPONSE RATE

Only 13 of the 27 Member States (48%) contributed in this survey. One of the reasons for this low rate is the fact that some of the representatives have changed position and therefore contact details, without informing us and without identifying their successors. Two Member States revised their position after the Task Force meeting in April. Only their most recent replies have been considered.

Table 1

B) REPLIES TO THE QUESTIONS

1st Question Experts were asked to rate the policy relevance of each of crime types addressed in the questionnaire according to the priorities of their Member State. The possible answers were: "indispensible", "important" and "optional" Each of them was attributed a score: indispensible = 3, important = 2, optional = 1. The average score of each crime type was calculated and the results are listed below:

Table 2

Comments on Question 1

At the same time the Experts provided a number of comments some of which concerned existing crime types and others crimes that they, as representatives of the MSs, would like to see in the final module. A summary of the written comments is given in the table below:

Table 3

Types of crime not included in the questionnaire but identified by the experts:

• Counterfeit goods (victim of counterfeited goods, i.e. deceived customer, access to counterfeited goods)
• Drugs (how easy it is to find drugs to buy)
• Cybercrime

2nd Question A draft list of proposed indicators was provided to the experts, who were asked to characterise each of them as “indispensable”, “important”, “optional” or “redundant”. Following the same technique (indispensible = 3,…, redundant = 0) the average score was calculated for each indicator and the results are presented in Table 4

Table4

Question 2.4 was treated separately although its overall average was calculated and reported in the table 4

Table 5

Comments on Question 2

A number of indicators, additionally to the existing list, were proposed by the experts. However, only seriousness of the offence and satisfaction with the performance of the prosecution were mentioned more than once.

Other indicators proposed:

- Percentage of respondents who were victims of the same crime more than once

- Percentage of victims who reported to the police, by type of crime

- Percentage of respondents victimized by crimes involving weapons (knives, firearms)

- Percentage of victims who suffered physical injury

- Victim-offender relationship

- percentage of victims who did not report to the police or other agencies the crime they had fallen victim of

- five typical reasons why victims as specified in suggested indicator above omitted to report crime (e.g.: bagatelle crime (petty offence), fear, shame, intimate offender or offender of close acquaintance, former negative experience with police or law enforcement)

- percentage of respondents owing security and/or self defence items other than firearms/weapons (e.g.: knife, sprays, sticks, etc.)

3rd Question

Experts were asked whether they agree with Eurostat’s initiative to propose a legal basis for the survey and whether they have comments on the articles of the proposed regulation

The majority of the Member States are in favour of the proposed regulations.

4th Question

Experts were asked whether they agree with the proposed time schedule (data collection 2nd semester 2013, transmission by 31 October 2014, dissemination by March 2015) and what they would consider as reasonable time between the end of the fieldwork and the dissemination of the data.

Given that preference for the fieldwork in the first semester does not mean objection to the overall proposed time schedule, we conclude that there is a clear divergence of views.

Annex 1: Questionnaire sent to the Expert Group on Policy Needs of Data on Crime and Criminal Justice

Seventeen pilot exercises have been carried out to translate and test a module on crime victimisation. These pilot exercises are currently being evaluated for Eurostat by a team of experts from the universities of Tilburg (Intervict) and Lausanne. An intermediate evaluation was available for the meeting of the working group of Eurostat in February 2010. A synthesis of this report can be found in our CIRCA site under the directory "EU Security Survey". Based on the comments provided by the Member States that participated in the pilot exercise, the team of experts proposed some changes on the structure and the content of the questionnaire. The current, revised EU Security Survey Questionnaire has the following parts:

Interviewer introduction

1. Personal and household information
2. Worries about crime
3. Victimisation screening questions
4. Victimisation forms
5. Attitudes to law enforcement and security precautions
6. Additional personal and household information

1ST QUESTION: The table below contains the types of crime covered in the screening questions. Considering the amount of work that has gone into the design of a well-balanced questionnaire and the advanced stage of fieldwork preparations, it seems unadvisable to radically alter this core part of the questionnaire. Nevertheless, it is important to have your views on the choice of key indicators that they will be developed based on the collected data. Please give a rating of the policy relevance of each of the crime types according to your priorities by ticking off the appropriate categories.

Are there any other types of crime that you would consider indispensible for an ESS which are not included in the current list? Please specify.

2nd QUESTION: Eurostat's Working group has asked the Commission and the Expert Group on Policy Needs to define and prioritise the indicators that will be calculated and published based on the data collected during the survey. A draft list of the indicators we propose is given below. Please characterise each of the indicators as "indispensable", "important", "optional" or "redundant" by ticking the appropriate box. Note that Eurostat will make available the complete set of data for further scientific analysis after the publication of the agreed key indicators.

1. Response rate per Member State and mode (s) of data collection (i.e. interview method: CAPI, CATI etc)

2. Total percentage of victims of any common crime in the course of last year overall and per MS (disaggregated by gender and three age groups), excluding consumer fraud and bribery

3. Percentage of households/persons victimized in the course of last year by each of the crime categories listed in the questionnaire, overall and per MS. The crime categories are:

Theft of car; Theft from car; Car damage; Theft of motor cycle, scooter, moped; Bicycle theft; Home burglary; Other burglaries; Property damage; Robbery; Theft; Sexual offences and/or assaults; Bribery; Consumer fraud (product and service); Computer fraud (phishing, computer security and identity fraud)

4. Percentage of households/persons victimized in the course of last year by the following grouped crime categories overall and per MS

Burglary or attempted burglary

Contact crimes ( robbery and/or sexual offences and/or threats/ assaults), disaggregated by gender and three age groups

Violence by intimates, disaggregated by gender and three age groups

Other theft (vehicle -related theft, other personal theft)

Car-related crimes (car theft, theft from car)

Vandalism (car vandalism, household vandalism)

Total fraud (consumer fraud, Internet fraud, credit card fraud, identity theft)

Bribery

5. Scores on composite index of worry about crime, overall and per MS (based on key items identified in the questionnaire)

6. Percentage of respondents worrying about burglary per MS

7. Percentage of respondents worrying about terrorism overall and per MS

8. Percentage of respondents worrying about risks of family members to be assaulted overall and per MS

9. Percentage of respondents exposed to drug-related crimes in the last 12 months, overall and per MS

10. Percentage of households with burglar alarm, overall and per MS,

11. Percentage of respondents owning weapons for their safety over all and per MS

12. Percentage of households with special door locks, overall and per MS

13. Percentage of respondents taking courses on self-defence for their safety overall and per MS (disaggregated by gender and age group)

14. Percentage of respondents that prefer to go out in a group after dark overall and per MS (disaggregated by gender and three age groups)

15. Satisfaction with police performance overall and per MS

16. Satisfaction with the courts overall and per MS

17. Scores on index victim satisfaction with police services (based on indicators like reporting rate in selected crimes, reception -follow up information, overall satisfaction)

18. Percentage victims of serious crimes who have received services from specialised support agency overall and per MS

19. Public attitudes towards punishment ( % respondents opting for imprisonment for recidivist burglar) overall and per MS

Any suggestions for other key indicators base on items in questionnaire:

Are there any other indicators or types of disaggregation that you would consider indispensible for a report on the ESS, which are not included in the above list? Please specify.

(To answer this question you may need to consult the document "Victimisation survey-lessons learned from pilots" which is uploaded on our CIRCA site in the folder EU Security Survey)

3rd QUESTION: In November 2009, the European Statistical System Committee approved the development of a specific legal basis, including financial provisions for the European Security Survey. The legal basis consists of two regulations. The proposed text for the regulations and details on the procedures are given in the document "victimisation survey-future developments". Please read the draft proposal and answer to the following questions:

Do you agree with Eurostat's initiative to propose a legal basis for the survey?

Do you have any comments on the articles of the proposed regulation? Does the regulation cover all the necessary issues?

4th QUESTION: In the same document the time schedule proposed for the implementation of the survey is as follows:

– Data collection: second semester 2013

– Deadline for the transmission of the data by the Member States to Eurostat 31 October 2014

– Dissemination of the data by the end of March 2015.

Do you agree with the above time table? What would you consider as "reasonable time" between the completion of fieldwork and the dissemination of the data?

Annex 2: Detailed comments received during this written consultation

Comments on Question 1

• Stalking to be included in the list of crime types
• Data on attempted burglary should not be collected separately.
• The types of crime covered have to take into consideration the number of households covered by the survey and the basic victimisation rate for the crimes. Therefore some crime types as i.e. sexual assault could lead to insignificant (invalid or non-reliable) data.
• Identity fraud seams to be a crime type that is not well defined, and should be omitted.
• The crime type bribery should be described as “solicitation of bribes and extortion” because respondents are not victims “bribery” in a nearer sense.
• Samples will probably be too small to be able to make any valid rate of prevalence of violence/threats by type of offender.
• Burglary is a not well define term, since it may refer to both domestic theft and other types of aggravated thefts. In addition, in some countries houses are to be considered as such even if they are used as second houses.
• Theft of personal property is too generic: pick pocketing and bag snatching are indispensable , but thefts not involving any form of contact between offender and victim (e.g.: theft of unattended personal property) are less important
• Threats by strangers: this category is too large to be properly understood by respondents, especially due to cultural patterns and typical behaviour in each MS.
• Bribery: in defining the questions referring to this kind of crime pattern, we should take account of the fact that the victim of bribery is mostly aware of the illicit conduct he/she is involved in.
• The questionnaire should include drug-related crimes considering that people who live in an area affected by the activities of drug peddlers or presence of drug addicts could feel unsafe or worried as a result of social and urban degradation.
• It is suggested that domestic violence per se is included comprising physical, sexual and psychological violence between partners, ex-partners, parents of common descendant in first degree and to a person particularly undefended, due to age, deficiency, disease, pregnancy or economic dependency living in the household.
• Violence needs to be split up into more policy-relevant subcategories such as street violence, partner violence, workplace violence, … It is such issues that our decision-makers are likely to want to know. However because a needs assessment was never made in the first place, at least some of the most obvious faults should be corrected. The current questionnaire design is unable to capture such issues: the details of the “most recent” violence incident are not the solution since the most recent event in a broad violence category will be unable to provide estimates for different violence subcategories.
• It is suggested that the term "intimate" be replaced by “family member” as “intimate” can be interpreted in different legal systems in Europe as being too narrow (i.e. meaning only the couple living together) and not as encompassing all situations that may exist in a family .
• What about sexual offences by known person – not intimate, nor stranger

Comments on Question 2